Piaget, Moral Development and the Curriculum

Abstract

Abstract In The Moral Development of the Child Piaget proposes a sketch of a developmental account of moral judgments, and the sequence of stages which he there proposes have been widely taken to provide a basis for any adequate developmental account. However, if Piaget's work on cognitive development is taken as providing a standard by which to judge such theories it is doubtful that moral development can be accounted for through the use of the equilibrium concept. The very notion of ‘a moral judgment’ with which Piaget works imposes severe restrictions on the adequacy of the theory, leading him necessarily to ignore important issues. Furthermore, there seems to be no underpinning available to secure the necessary order of the stages, and as a matter of fact some children seem to show evidence of a capacity to make advanced moral judgments at an early age. It is argued, therefore, that the search for developmental structures of this kind should be abandoned.